Presently, operating systems provide a variety of utilities that assist in opening display areas within a GUI being presented at a display component (e.g., computer monitor, screen on a mobile device, and the like). Frequently, a split-button control is used to assist in opening a display area, or menu, along with providing functionality. A common design of a split-button is a combination of two of more buttons in a single control, where a primary button allows for initiation of a principle action while a secondary button allows for surfacing a menu of selectable options that relate to the principle action. For instance, a split-button may be a text-color control such that actuating the primary button applies a currently selected color to text within a document-editing application while actuating the secondary button surfaces a pop-up menu that offers more color choices that may be set as the currently selected color.
However, because the secondary button that opens a display area, or menu, is not often actuated, it is reduced in size to decrease clutter on the GUI. Accordingly, on a touch-input device (e.g., a touchscreen display), the secondary button is difficult to actuate. That is, it is unlikely a user will accurately actuate the small pixel area associated with the secondary button with the large contact area created by a pad of the user's finger on the touchscreen display. Further, no mechanism allows for a user to preview which button is selected for actuation before the actual actuation occurs at the touchscreen device—in comparison to highlighting a button when a cursor tool is hovering thereover. Still further, the act of actuation on a touchscreen display is clumsy (e.g., moving a user's entire arm to provide the actuation), thus, creating a wide variability of where on the touchscreen device the actuation will occur, as opposed to where the actuation is intended. As such, employing an intuitive technique for selecting the secondary button from a touchscreen display while drawing the secondary button in a reduced size on the GUI would enhance a user's experience accessing a menu from a top-level control button.